Reply #65: Having lived in the South when I was young, I believe [View All]

[JDPriestly]

that the South will fall apart before any other part of the country. They don't have a culture that encourages supporting your neighbor in the way we do in California.

Those parts of the country in which people are well educated and prepared to be self-reliant will be best off.

It is highly unlikely that defense factories will help anyone when our country breaks down. That is because the first thing that will go is the dollar. When that goes, we won't be able to import the materials we need to keep our weapons arsenal in shape. The defense industry is a parasite on a nation's real economy. The defense industry can export to other countries but it relies on its research and development funds on the US government. It will implode as the tax revenues that feed it dwindle.

I suspect that the areas of the country that will survive are those that have lots of water and healthy soil (if that exists anywhere in the US) and can produce edible food.

I lived in Germany and Austria for some years. I remember one elderly woman who told me that she survived because, well before WWII she had saved all her old clothes in her attic -- never threw anything away.

After the war, she was able to alter the clothes to fit people and sell them. That is how she made her living during the difficult years. Things that you think are worth a lot now will not be worth much if times get rough. That I-Phone? How long do you think it will continue to function? How are you going to recharge your old batteries for that kind of equipment?

There is nothing wrong with enjoying these trinkets while you can, but think about how you would live if the cost of gasoline rose to the point that your grocer had to charge very high prices for food. You can do without much electricity in your house, but you have to have food.

I don't think we will have a violent revolution at this time. I just think we will get poorer and poorer and it will get rougher and rougher. It is hard to say what might happen then. We might actually join together and reaffirm our democracy. Hard to say.